It’s not every day a small village like Lyons receives grants to underwrite infrastructure improvements. This month, the village learned it has received three grants, from different sources, to fund projects to upgrade its park and main street, and rehabilitate its dam.

That’s the first part of the hurdle. Now the village council has to figure out where the required local match funds will come from, said Kenton Eavey, a council member and chair of the grants committee.

A grant from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund for $234,500 was awarded to Lyons for improvements to Hazel Devore Island Park. Eavey said the council hopes to add a kayak launch site, walking trails and a fishing area; and enhance the primitive camping area, restrooms, parking lot and landscaping. Lyons has to come up with $70,500 as its local match, he added.

The Michigan Strategic Fund’s Community Development Block Grant program gave a downtown infrastructure grant in the amount of $778,000 to renovate Bridge Street from King Street west toward the bridge, Eavey said. In addition to road resurfacing, the project will include water upgrades; changes to parking on the north side of the street by the library, making some spaces parallel and others angle parking; and adding new trees. The village’s local match is $170,600, to which the Downtown Development Authority has committed $15,000, said Eavey.

The Ionia Conservation District also received $994,975 from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Dam Management Grant Program to remove a portion of the Lyons Dam and make improvements.

“We’re trying to juggle as to these grants, because you don’t want to throw any of them away and say you can’t do them,” Eavey said. “That’s the dilemma we’re in: where do we borrow it from? Do we use some savings? Take out a loan over 40 years at 2.5 percent? We really haven’t sat down and crunched all those figures.”

Eavey said the next step is to look at each of the grants individually to see what the village’s cost will be on each project.

“We’ll have to figure out whether we take it out of our own money and how much to borrow,” he said. “We may have to drop some of the items (included in proposed projects).”

If everything moves forward as planned, Eavey said he hopes construction will begin in late summer or early fall.

“We’re trying to make it better for those who are here and those who may want to go through – and may want to go through again,” Eavey said. “Lyons needs upgrading. The downtown roads are pretty bad, because they haven’t been done in ... I couldn’t tell you how long.”